Two people were arrested by the city police on charges of cheating and forgery for their alleged involvement in procuring a loan of Rs 15 lakh with fake gold as collateral from the Odhav branch of Muthoot Finance Company.
The police believe that there is a larger gang of eight people involved in the racket. “We have arrested Savitri Gurunani and her nephew Gaurav Dalwani. The loan was borrowed in the name of Savitri some six months ago,” Odhav police inspector, VD Bhrambhatt told DNA.
During the duo’s interrogation, the police found that Savitri was used as a front for the loan by six others who are still absconding. “Two of these men, Rizwan and Javed Akhtar Ansari, have been identified as the masterminds behind the entire racket,” Bhrambhatt said.
According to the police, Gurunani had borrowed Rs15 lakh, six months ago, from the Odhav branch of Muthoot Finance after providing gold bangles as collateral. “According to the company’s process, they disbursed the loan after preliminary examination of the genuineness of the gold with a chemical test,” the inspector said.
Company sources said that due to the company having only one evaluator for the entire state of Gujarat, the detailed analysis and evaluation report on the gold was carried out after six months which is when the evaluator found the gold bangles were made out of some other metal and not gold, sources said.
Primary police investigation revealed that Gurunani had received only Rs4,000 from the deal while the major chunk of money from the loan went to Rizwan and Javed. After the evaluation report of the gold, the Odhav branch manager of the finance company had registered a case with the police.
“We have arrested Gurnani and Dalwani and are investigating the matter further. We believe the gang may have procured loans with a similar modus operandi from other finance companies as well,” a police official said.
